Search Engine Optimization

Intro to Search Engine Optimization

SEO is an acronym for 'search engine optimization' or 'search engine optimized' and refers to your website's natural search engine position when someone searches for your company or your company's type of products or services. Unless you have the resources to spend for paid online advertising such as PPC and CPM, SEO is the way to go. Deciding to hire an SEO expert is a big decision that can potentially improve your site and save time, but you can also risk damage to your site and reputation. Make sure to research the potential advantages as well as the damage that an irresponsible SEO company could do to your site.

At AIT, we provide useful services for website owners including: (1) Review of your site content or structure, (2) Technical advice on website development like hosting, redirects, error pages, and use of JavaScript, (3) Content development, (4) Management of online business development campaigns, (5) Keyword research, (6) SEO training, and (7) Expertise in specific markets and geographies. Contact us for details.

Create unique content

Content creation is the art and science of laying out the structure of your pages in such a way as to maximize how search bots read your site. Every search engine has bots or crawlers that crawl, index, store and score your site for relevance. This applies to keyword search, keyword optimization, keyword density, and many other things. We can help you create a steady stream of current and relevant content.

SITE SPEED

Each page on your site must be optimized for fast delivery. This applies to above-fold styles, asynchronous java script loads, cache, images, html mummification and many other things. Compare AIT's network and web server speeds to our competitors'. Add AIT's network performance to the development and optimization of your website and you (and your site visitors) will experience a whole new level of speed.

TRICKS OF THE TRADE

The world of SEO is complex, but most people can easily understand the basics. Even a small amount of knowledge can make a big difference. Free SEO education is widely available on the web, and, with a little practice, you are well on your way to being able to evaluate your options. We can help you target traffic to your website at a low cost providing you with publicity, revenue, and exposure to facilitate your marketing success.

SEO SCAMS - BEWARE

Be wary of SEO firms and web consultants or agencies that send you email out of the blue.

Google gets those spam emails too: 'Dear google.com, I visited your website and noticed that you are not listed in most of the major search engines and directories...' Reserve the same skepticism for unsolicited email about search engine results that you already have for 'burn fat at night' diet pills or requests to help transfer funds from deposed dictators.

No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google.

Beware of SEOs that claim to guarantee search engine rankings, allege a 'special relationship' with Google, or advertise a 'priority submit' to Google.

You should never have to link for SEO.

Avoid SEO companies that talk about the power of 'free-for-all' links, link popularity schemes, or submitting your site to thousands of search engines. These are typically useless exercises that don't affect your ranking in the results of the major search engines--at least not in a way you would likely consider to be positive.

Be sure to understand where the money goes.

While Google never sells better ranking in search results, several other search engines combine pay-per-click or pay-for-inclusion results with their regular web search results. Some SEO companies promise to rank you highly in search engines, but end up placing you in advertising sections rather than in search results. A few SEO companies will even change their bid prices in real time to create the illusion that they 'control' other search engines and can place themselves in the slot of their choice. This scam doesn't work with Google because their advertising is clearly labeled and separated from search results, so be sure to ask any SEO company you're considering which fees go toward permanent inclusion and which apply toward temporary advertising.

What are the most common abuses a website owner is likely to encounter?

One common scam is the creation of 'shadow' domains that funnel users to a site by using deceptive redirects. These shadow domains often will be owned by the SEO company claiming to be work on a client's behalf. However, if the relationship sours, the SEO company may point the domain to a different site or even to a competitor's domain. If that happens, the client has paid to develop a competing site owned entirely by the SEO company. Another illicit practice is to place 'doorway' pages loaded with keywords on the client's site somewhere. The SEO promises this will make the page more relevant for more queries. This is inherently false since individual pages are rarely relevant for a wide range of keywords. More insidious, however, is that these doorway pages often contain hidden links to the SEO company's other clients as well. Such doorway pages drain away the link popularity of a site and route it to the SEO company and its other clients, which may include competitor sites or sites with unsavory or illegal content.